Clubbing on a Monday night — that’s the image that came into my mind as I was reading the great new book by Christine Rosen, The Extinction of Experience: Being Human in a Disembodied World. Rosen is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a columnist for Commentary magazine. She is one of America’s best writers and thinkers.

The Extinction of Experience explores the way the digital revolution and the rise of the internet, the smartphone, and AI have altered our lives. Rosen appreciates the miracles of modern technology, which are useful and “fun.” She defines “technology” as “computers, smartphones, smart speakers, wearable sensors, and, in our likely future, implantable objects, as well as software, algorithms, etc.”

However, the bigger picture is that our gadgets have become obstacles to the spiritual, mental, and psychological flourishing of human beings. 

“Many of our current technologies seem to view people as the problem to which devices and platforms and algorithms provide a necessary solution,” Rosen writes. “If earlier technologies were an extension of our senses, today’s technologies train us to mistrust our own senses and rely instead on technology.” 

The results of this are bad, as we can no longer tolerate boredom or contemplation. We can’t experience a concert, conversation, or romantic pleasure without digital mediation. 

“The extinction of fundamental human experiences creates a world where our sense of shared reality and purpose is further frayed, and where a growing distrust of human judgment will further polarize our culture and politics,” she writes. “Technological change of the sort we have experienced in the last 20 years has not ushered in either greater social stability or moral evolution. In fact, many of our sophisticated technological inventions and platforms have been engineered to bring out the worst of human nature.”

The contrast to this is the image that came into my mind as I was reading her book: dancing in a club on a Monday night in the pre-digital world. When I was in my 20s, back in the 1980s and before the digital revolution, I would sometimes go out clubbing and bar-hopping on weeknights. I worked at a restaurant in Georgetown in Washington, D.C., and for many of us in that business, our weekends were Mondays and Tuesdays. 

On Monday, I would go out and hit a few favorite night spots. The crowds were small and the city quiet. You could have time with bartenders and DJs you knew to share some conversation. It was contemplative, friendly, sometimes even boring. You’d think about your life, your loves, your goals. You would talk to God. You’d dance with someone you had just met, and actually see the smile on their face. It was like an urban nightlife version of Huck Finn and Jim drifting down the Mississippi River.

That experience came to me while reading The Extinction of Experience because it touched on so many things that Rosen argues are necessary for human flourishing. 

She writes, “Certain types of experience — some rooted deeply in our evolutionary history, such as face-to-face interaction and various forms of pleasure-seeking; others more recent and reflective of cultural norms, such as patience and our sense of public space and place — are fading from our lives. Many of these experiences are what, historically, have helped us form and nurture a shared reality as human beings. Mediating technologies have been a significant force behind these changes.”

Rosen devotes the entire first chapter of her book to the importance of the human face. For thousands of years, we have used our subtle and complex reading of the human face to make friends and discover a spouse, to detect danger, to lift our spirits, to laugh and cry. That primal ability is being lost as faces are now glued to cellphones. Just as young people are forgetting how to write cursive, they are losing the ability to read the human face.

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I can still remember in detail the faces of all the bartenders, DJs, and a few girls I danced with 40 years ago. Today’s young digital addicts can’t remember who they met an hour ago. As Rosen notes, we marvel at “the rarity of finding someone in public space who is not immersed in a smartphone.” We suffer from a “waning ability to experience human pleasure without mediation.” 

Spending a quiet Monday night in the clubs of Washington, D.C., all those decades ago gave me something I remember to this day. It gave me a fully human experience. 

Mark Judge is an award-winning journalist and the author of The Devil’s Triangle: Mark Judge vs. the New American Stasi. He is also the author of God and Man at Georgetown Prep, Damn Senators, and A Tremor of Bliss.

WASHINGTON (DC News Now) — There have been several high-profile incidents of D.C.’s 911 system going down.

Now, the Office of Unified Communications is getting a much-needed upgrade.

DC’s 911 call center under new leadership, direction

The IT issues are just part of the problem. There are also major staffing issues that some allege have led to errors.

City officials spoke for the first time publicly since a baby died while the system shut down earlier this month.

Since December of last year, D.C. City Administrator, Kevin Donahue, said there have been 18 incidents of the 911 system going down for a period of time.

“Eight of the 18 had some pretty significant effects. It has more systemic in nature and most of those dealt with dispatch,” Donahue said.

One of those outages on Aug. 2 lasted two hours. Donahue said a contract employee pushed a change to every workstation at the 911 center instead of the planned one or two stations.

“Totally unacceptable. Totally outside of the norm and expectation of what this person should have done,” Donahue said.

The contractor was fired that day and the Metropolitan Police Department is investigating what happened.

“Whether it was a mistake, perhaps lack of training, lack of similarity, or whether it was negligence of a criminal nature is an open question,” Donahue said.

DC 911’s call center to offer $800 bonus to employees who show up for work

During that time a five-month-old died. The family first couldn’t contact 911 and then with pen and paper, dispatchers sent medics who were already on another call to the address.

Donahue said everyone followed protocol.

“But the protocol wasn’t sufficient to be able to accurately understand that we had a unit that the system showed us available, but in fact wasn’t,” Donahue said.

OUC Director Heather McGaffin said her staff did all they could.

“My condolences to the family. Losing a child is unimaginable. Our call takers did everything that they could in those moments to reassure and offer guidance during that time,” McGaffin said.

Donahue said they have a 22-point plan to address the computer-aided dispatch outages.
The most important part is equipment upgrades.

“The equipment we have was not able to keep up with the demands that are being placed on it,” Donahue said.

DC’s 911 response to shooting worries woman after waiting on hold for nearly 90 seconds

Around $2.5 million of upgrades wasn’t going to start until the new fiscal year on Oct. 1 but because of these incidents, the IT has money now to start doing upgrades.

“We have to learn from that and change how we do things so that there’s not going to be another instance of a family in a similar circumstance,” Donahue said.

Another big component of the problems with 911 is staffing.

Twenty-two call takers are starting at the end of this month. Nineteen vacant dispatcher positions will be filled through promotions from within OUC.

D.C. handles about 1.8 million calls a year. Call takers and dispatchers handle 70 or 80 calls per 12-hour shift.

DC’s 911 Call Center coming under fire

McGaffin said when they’re fully staffed they’ll look at reducing shift hours from 12 to eight or 10.

“We hold people accountable. We retrain and we separate when we have to,” McGaffin said.

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Jason Lewis, 42, argued that he acted in self-defense when he fatally shot 13-year-old Karon Blake

A former Washington, D.C. government worker has been found guilty of manslaughter in the shooting death of an unarmed teenage boy he had accused of breaking into cars in his neighborhood, authorities said.

Jason Lewis, 42, was handed down the guilty verdict by a D.C. Superior Court jury on Friday, Aug. 16, in connection with the 2023 killing of 13-year-old Karon Blake, according to a press release shared by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia. The jury acquitted Lewis of a second-degree murder charge.

According to the Associated Press, The Washington Post and a DC News Now, Lewis was a longtime D.C. Department of Parks and Recreation employee and was placed on administrative leave on Jan. 31, 2023, after surrendering to police in connection with the case.

Lewis argued he acted in self-defense when he shot at two young children — one of whom was Blake — he believed were breaking into cars in his Northeast, D.C., neighborhood at around 4 a.m. on Jan. 7, 2023, according to prosecutors.

D.C., Govt. Worker Accused of Fatally Shooting 13-Year-Old Black Boy He Claimed Was Trying to Break into Cars

Prosecutors said Lewis, who was armed with a fully-loaded registered handgun, was seen on video leaving his house and shooting in the direction of two children, hitting a car that one was driving. Blake then “ran in Lewis’ direction” and Lewis fired two shots at Blake, killing him, according to the release.

“Lewis claimed that he acted in self-defense because the two people that he initially fired at threatened him,” the release states.

Lewis testified during the trial that he went outside his home to investigate after hearing noises and seeing someone he believed was tampering with cars, NBC 4 Washington reports. He claimed in court that he feared for his life and opened fire after seeing Blake run towards him, according to the outlet.

“I’m sorry! I’m just a kid!” Blake can be heard repeatedly saying in the video footage shown in court, per the AP. The boy was pronounced dead at a local hospital shortly after the shooting, police previously said.

However, prosecutors denied Lewis’ claim of self-defense, saying that he didn’t wait to see whether Blake was unarmed, DC News Now reports.

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The shooting sparked outrage in the area after misinformation about the suspect’s identity was spread online. At the time, former Metropolitan Police Chief Robert Contee III cited the ongoing investigation as the reason why the gunman’s identity was not immediately made public.

He mentioned during a January 2023 press conference that the police department became aware of photos that were circulating on social media showing “people who have nothing to do with this case, and people are making allegations centered around race, and it’s wrong.” The former police chief later confirmed that the gunman is Black.

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser also criticized Lewis’ actions and encouraged people to call 911 instead of taking the law into their own hands, according to NBC 4 Washington.

According to a GoFundMe launched in the wake of his death, Blake was remembered as a “quiet and inquisitive scholar who loved fashion and football.” Loved ones also said on the fundraiser that he was a student at Brookland Middle School.

Lewis was found guilty of three counts of possession of a firearm during a crime of violence, two counts of assault with a dangerous weapon and one count of voluntary manslaughter while armed, committed against a minor, prosecutors said.

Lewis is scheduled to be sentenced on Oct. 25. According to prosecutors, he faces a maximum sentence of 45 years in prison.

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